Chapter 6
In front of the hall, incense smoke was curling up and the prayer flags were lightly swaying.
The overseer slowly stepped forward to greet Li Yaoying and pressed his palms together: “I was unaware that the princess has honored us with your presence. This humble monk was discourteous.”
He instructed the monks to prepare the puja and invited her to the main courtyard.
Li Yaoying smiled and shook her head, “Venerable Master need not be polite. I didn’t come to the temple without a cause1, disturbing Venerable Master’s tranquility.”
In the midst of these troubled times, the people were displaced and in a precarious state. Numerous people sought solace and to free themselves from worldly desires through Buddhism.
The influential families and large clans worshipped Buddha. The names of Uncle Xie and Noble Consort Xie came from Sanskrit, one called Wuliang and the other Manyuan.
The Li family didn’t have this tradition. Yaoying didn’t know Buddhism, and the only thing she knew about monks was through literature that had spread around in later times.
She wasn’t here today to offer incense and prayers.
After a few polite words, she directly stated her purpose in coming.
The overseer breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile, “Wait a moment, Princess. Venerable Mondatipa happens to be in the temple today.”
Yaoying smiled, “In that case, I would like to ask Venerable Master to send a bhikkhu to introduce me.”
The overseer was stunned, and then smiled.
He had received many noble personages these days. The new dynasty hadn’t been established for long, and the imperial relatives were arrogant and rude, so he was a bit fearful around them. He thought that the seventh princess would also be a difficult one, but did not expect that although she did not believe in Buddhism, she was modest and polite, a rare thing indeed.
The overseer found a receiving monk to take Li Yaoying to see Mondatipa.
The receiving monk went into the courtyard first, carrying an visiting post written by Li Yaoying herself.
Not long later, one of Mondatipa’s servants came out from the door and respectfully invited Li Yaoying into the room.
Mondatipa, who had just finished his morning meditation, sat on the prayer mat and met with Li Yaoying.
He was from Tianzhu, with a high nose and deep eyes, a broad face and a square mouth. Looking at his face, he was about fifty years old, with a pair of light brown eyes shining with a gentle light. Dressed in a brown kasaya robe, with an uncommon temperament, he felt very authentically Chinese.
Yaoying seldom dealt with monks, and the other party was a foreigner, so she hesitated for a moment.
Mondatipa asked, “Is the princess troubled because of your mother?”
He walked in the mortal world, often interacting with high officials and nobles, and was not a person who did not understand mundane affairs.
Yaoying nodded. The reason for her visit was already written on the post: “I have heard that Venerable Master is highly skilled in medicine, so I would like to ask Venerable to go and see the pulse of my mother.”
It was impossible for Xie Wuliang and the other Xie family members to come back from the dead, and there was no cure for Noble Consort Xie’s heart disease; she asked for a doctor for another matter.
Mondatipa said with a smile, “Buddha is known for his compassion, I dare not refuse what the princess has requested.”
A big stone dropped in Yaoying’s heart. She made an appointment with Mondatipa to send someone to pick him up from Daci’en Temple to bring to the palace the next day, left a generous gift, and took her leave.
A Chinese disciple of Mondatipa sent Li Yaoying out of the Daci’en Temple, several times wanting to say something but hesitating.
Yaoying turned her gaze on the disciple’s face and said with a light smile, “I am grateful to Venerable for taking the time to treat my mother. Let me know if there is anything I can do to relieve the Venerable Master’s worries.”
The disciple was relieved and said with his palms in prayer, “I am not going to hide it from Princess. The Venerable Master is about to travel westward. He came at this time to the capital to see the relics, but also for the sake of the customs clearance document.”
Yaoying suddenly realized.
No wonder Mondatipa was so polite, it turned out he had a request.
The Wei dynasty had a strict border. If Mondatipa wanted to travel westward in peace, he had to have a customs clearance document, otherwise he would be shot by the guards just after leaving Jincheng.
She smiled and said, “That’s not difficult, I’ll have someone send the required documents to Venerable tomorrow.”
To her, it was a simple matter of lifting her finger to ask for a clearance document.
The disciple thanked her profusely.
Yaoying asked curiously, “Why does Venerable Master want to go to the Western Regions?”
The Western Regions has been in turmoil for decades. With the Tubo, Turkic, Xianbei, Huihe, Khitan, Tartar and other tribal forces, large and small, warring against each other, how could it simply be described with the word ‘turmoil’.
The formerly prosperous Silk Road was now littered with dead bones. Even the merchants who valued money over their lives were afraid to set foot in the Western Regions.
Was Mondatipa not afraid that he would die under the sword of bandits as soon as he stepped out of the Central Plains?
The disciple replied: “There is a Buddhist kingdom in the Western Regions that has collected over ten thousand scrolls of scriptures and established more than one hundred Buddhist temples. Everyone, from the country’s lord to the common people, all worship Buddha. It is rumored that the monarch of this generation is both a king and a senior monk. Intelligent since young, he was able to read at the age of three, write scriptures at the age of seven, and at the age of ten, ascended to the throne to teach the Dharma, becoming famous in the Western Regions. Venerable Master has long wanted to go on a trip and discuss the Dharma with that senior monk. Venerable Master said that he was wholeheartedly devoted to the Buddha and that the Buddha would surely bless him with peace and safety.”
Buddhist kingdom in the Western Regions?
Shule, Qiuci, Gaochang, Yutian, or Yanqi?
Famous monarch and senior monk in the Western Regions…..
A name crossed Yaoying’s mind.
If she guessed correctly, the senior monk that Mondatipa wanted to see should be that person.
A person who made Li Xuanzhen unable to rest in peace.
A person who died in their prime. When the news of his death came out, the civil and military ministers of more than ten large and small countries and tribes, such as Wei Dynasty in Central Plains, Tubo, Mongols2 in the north, and the Khitan, all breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
On the way back to the palace, Li Yaoying made calculations in her mind.
If Mondatipa departed and set off now, he should be able to find the Buddhist kingdom before the senior monk’s death, and could still discuss the Dharma with that senior monk.
……
The sound of people was noisy to her ears, and the faint fragrance of sweet wine, fat powder, cable cake3 and buttery hubing mixed together in the fine breeze blowing on her face.
The road was jammed with carriages and horses and the sound of brass bells. As you got closer to the imperial city, the more carriages and pedestrians there were on the road.
The Wusun horse was tame and docile, and its speed gradually slowed down.
Pedestrians on both sides of the road cast astonished glances. Ahead, the women in cattle carts and mule carts lifted the curtain to look back. When their eyes fell on Li Yaoying’s face, they ordered their servants to yield the road.
Li Yaoying came back to her senses and realized that she was so absorbed in her thoughts that she forgot to put on her curtain hat when she came out of Daci’en Temple.
Xie Qing handed her a curtain hat, and she took it. She looked up at the walls of the square and found that she had already passed Xuanyung Square. Further ahead was Pingkang Square, where the Qin buildings and Chu pavilions were located, and Chongren Square, where the high-ranking and prominent officials lived.
Whether it was in war or peace, this was the most prosperous place in Chang’an.
No wonder that up ahead was a crowd so crammed that not even a drop of water could get through.
Xie Qing swept a glance behind: “Your Highness, do you want to drive them away?”
Yaoying glanced behind her, put on her curtain hat and lowered her head to adjust her belt: “Don’t bother.”
Every time she went out of the palace, the rich sons of the capital who were idle because of their families’ status would gather around her like a swarm of bees smelling the sweet scent of nectar, and follow her around with great interest.
She never paid any attention to them.
A dozen zhang (10ft) behind them, the young teenage sons in brocade robes caught Li Yaoying look before she put on the curtain hat, and their blood surged up in their bodies, chattering, “The Seventh Princess looked at us!”
”The Seventh Princess smiled at me!”
”We see through your pair of tricks. How could the Seventh Princess smile at you? Don’t make a fool of yourself!”
The teenage boys were so excited that their faces were flushed.
But no one dared to go forward.
No one wanted to become the second Xue wulang.
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I added a rating option at the end of my posts and on comments just for funsies. It’s all anonymous so do it or don’t, just thought it could be nice :)
1 This is an idiom that means having ulterior motives, a hidden agenda.
2 It actually was Golden Horde, a group of Mongols who settled in Russia, founded by a grandson of Genghis Khan. I felt it was such an awkward name so I used Mongols.
3 These look like mahua (fried dough twists) but they aren’t called the same thing at all. I just directly translated it from Chinese.